# Slender Man > Slender Man is a 2009 creepypasta created by Eric Knudsen depicting a faceless, black-suited figure who stalks children, becoming internet mythology that inspired games, a film, and a 2014 stabbing. Slender Man is a fictional horror character created by Eric Knudsen on the Something Awful forums in June 2009, depicted as a tall, faceless figure in a black suit who stalks and abducts children. What started as two doctored photographs in a Photoshop contest became one of the internet's most significant pieces of collaborative fiction, spawning web series, video games, a feature film, and a real-world moral panic after two 12-year-old girls stabbed a classmate in 2014 to prove their devotion to the character. ## Origin On June 8, 2009, a thread titled "Create Paranormal Images" launched on the Something Awful forums, challenging users to digitally manipulate ordinary photographs into convincing paranormal scenes[3]. Two days later, on June 10, forum user Victor Surge (real name Eric Knudsen) posted two black-and-white photographs showing groups of children with a tall, spectral figure lurking in the background[4]. The first image carried the caption: "We didn't want to go, we didn't want to kill them, but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us at the same time"[4]. The second described a recovered photograph from the "Stirling City Library blaze," noting that fourteen children had vanished the same day[4]. Knudsen drew inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King's *The Mist*, reports of shadow people, the Mothman legend, and the Tall Man from the 1979 film *Phantasm*[4]. His goal was "to formulate something whose motivations can barely be comprehended, and [which caused] unease and terror in a general population"[4]. By June 11, Knudsen had added more images and a fake doctor's account. Other Something Awful users quickly jumped in. SA user LeechCode5 posted a photograph of a burning building with Slender Man backstory on June 12, and user TrenchMaul reused the character for his own story on June 14[3]. The original thread extended to 46 pages[3]. The creation may have also been influenced by the "Chzo Mythos" adventure games published by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw in 2003, which featured a villain called "Cabadath," sometimes referred to as the "Tall Man," a thin figure in a long black coat with a blank face[3]. - **Platform:** 4chan/CreepyPasta.com - **Creator:** Eric Knudsen, a.k.a. Victor Surge (character creator) - **Date:** June 2009 ## Overview Slender Man is typically shown as an unnaturally tall, thin humanoid wearing a black suit and tie, with a completely blank white face lacking any features. He has long, stretching arms and tentacle-like appendages that extend from his back[1]. According to the mythology built around him, he targets children and young adults, lurking in forests and abandoned locations[4]. Proximity to him supposedly causes "Slender sickness," a mix of paranoia, nightmares, nosebleeds, and electronic interference with cameras and screens[3]. The character works because he's deliberately vague. His motives, origins, and the fate of his victims are left ambiguous, which made him the perfect canvas for thousands of contributors to build on[1]. As folklorist Jeff Tolbert put it, the character's development was "an open-sourcing of storytelling"[1]. ## How It Spread Slender Man jumped from Something Awful to 4chan's /x/ (paranormal) board almost immediately. The earliest known 4chan mention dates to June 24, 2009, just two weeks after the original post[3]. From there, it spread to the Unfiction Forums, DeviantArt, TVTropes, and dozens of other sites[3]. The character's first major media adaptation came on June 20, 2009, when a YouTube channel called Marble Hornets released the first entry of a found-footage series about a film student stalked by a Slender Man-like figure called "The Operator"[2]. Created by Troy Wagner and Joseph Delage, the series ran until 2014 and pulled in over 250,000 subscribers with 55 million views across 65 episodes[11]. Marble Hornets introduced several key elements to the mythology, including "proxies" (humans under Slender Man's control) and the "⦻" circle-cross symbol[4]. A wave of Slender Man web series followed, including TribeTwelve, EverymanHYBRID, and Dark Harvest, building what fans called "the Slenderverse"[7]. Creepypasta communities became the main hub for written fiction, where stories were shared as if they were true accounts, like digital campfire tales[1]. The character hit mainstream gaming in 2012 with *Slender: The Eight Pages*, a free Unity-based horror game by Mark "AgentParsec" Hadley where players navigate a dark forest collecting notes while being stalked by Slender Man[9]. PC Gamer and Kotaku covered the game, which became a viral hit and spawned countless YouTube reaction videos[12]. Its sequel, *Slender: The Arrival*, developed by Blue Isle Studios with Knudsen as producer, launched in March 2013[5]. Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson acknowledged Slender Man as the direct inspiration for Minecraft's Enderman mob, a tall, black, teleporting creature that attacks when players look at it[12]. On Tumblr, the character spawned its own parody ecosystem. In July 2012, user Conjured Charisma posted a photo of a faceless mannequin in trendy clothes, which user I Lack Tact dubbed "Trender Man," Slender Man's "sassy gay brother"[13]. The joke character got its own meme generator page and fan art[3]. ## How to Use Slender Man isn't a traditional meme template with a fixed format. Instead, people typically engage with the character in a few ways: 1. **Photoshop/image manipulation:** Insert a tall, thin figure in a dark suit into the background of ordinary photos, particularly those featuring children, forests, or schools. Black and white filters add to the effect. 2. **Creepypasta writing:** Write first-person horror accounts describing encounters with the figure, using a fragmented, found-document style. 3. **Found-footage video:** Film shaky-cam footage in dark locations, adding static distortion and brief glimpses of a suited figure. 4. **Fan art:** Draw or digitally render the character, often emphasizing his height, blank face, and tentacles. ## Cultural Impact The Slender Man case is studied in academia as a landmark example of internet-era folklore. Professor Shira Chess of the University of Georgia published *Folklore, Horror Stories, and the Slender Man: The Development of an Internet Mythology*, examining how a fictional character could develop genuine mythological weight through crowd collaboration[4]. Jeff Tolbert of Indiana University wrote academic papers on the character's folkloric significance[1]. Minecraft's Enderman, one of the game's most iconic mobs, was directly inspired by Slender Man, giving the character a permanent footprint in the best-selling video game of all time[12]. The 2014 Waukesha stabbing triggered a national conversation about children's internet consumption and the blurring of fiction and reality online[1]. The case became the subject of HBO's documentary *Beware the Slenderman* (2016)[4] and multiple true-crime books and podcasts. Slender Man also became a case study in intellectual property and internet creation. Though the character was born in a collaborative forum thread, Knudsen retained rights to the character, leading to questions about ownership of crowdsourced fiction[4]. ## Fun Facts - The Something Awful thread where Slender Man was created was a Photoshop contest, not a horror fiction project. The challenge was specifically to create fake paranormal photos convincing enough to post on real paranormal forums[3]. - Slender Man's blank face and suit drew comparisons to The Question, a DC Comics superhero with a faceless appearance whose secret identity is "Victor Sage," notably similar to Knudsen's pseudonym "Victor Surge"[4]. - The community self-policed its own canon. When one user tried to introduce a military team tracking Slender Man, other users rejected it as "too obvious" and "too much like an X-Files story"[1]. - Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier used a code system to plan their attack: "cracker" meant knife and "itch" meant killing[2]. - The fabricated German folklore of "Der Großmann" became so widely repeated that many people assumed Slender Man had genuine medieval roots. Encyclopedia Slenderia debunked the claim in 2011[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Slender Man? Slender Man is a fictional horror character depicted as a tall, faceless figure in a black suit with tentacle-like appendages. He was created as an internet meme in 2009 and grew into one of the most well-known examples of digital folklore[1]. ### Where did Slender Man come from? He was created on June 10, 2009, by Eric Knudsen (username Victor Surge) as part of a "Create Paranormal Images" Photoshop contest on the Something Awful forums[4]. ### What does Slender Man mean? The character represents a modern digital bogeyman. He's associated with child abduction, paranoia, and the blurring of fiction and reality. His mythology includes inducing "Slender sickness" (paranoia, nightmares, nosebleeds) in those who encounter him[3]. ### How do you use Slender Man? People typically create Slender Man content by Photoshopping a tall suited figure into photos, writing creepypasta fiction, making found-footage videos, or creating fan art. The convention is to keep depictions vague and unsettling rather than explicit[1]. ### Is Slender Man still popular? The character peaked in mainstream popularity between 2012 and 2014 but maintains a dedicated following. The *Slender: The Arrival* remaster launched in 2023, and a sequel game is scheduled for 2026[5]. ### Who created Slender Man? Eric Knudsen created the character under the pseudonym Victor Surge on the Something Awful forums. He was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, reports of shadow people, and the 1979 film *Phantasm*[4]. ### What was the Slender Man stabbing? On May 31, 2014, in Waukesha, Wisconsin, two 12-year-old girls, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, stabbed their classmate Payton Leutner 19 times in an attempt to prove their dedication to the fictional character. Leutner survived[2]. ### What is Marble Hornets? Marble Hornets is a YouTube found-footage series created by Troy Wagner and Joseph Delage that began just 10 days after Slender Man's creation. It ran for 65 episodes and adapted the character as "The Operator," accumulating over 55 million views[11]. ### Did Slender Man inspire Minecraft's Enderman? Yes. Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson confirmed that the Enderman, a tall, black, teleporting mob, was directly inspired by the Slender Man character[12]. ### Is Slender Man based on real folklore? No. Despite widely circulated claims about "Der Großmann" from German folklore, these backstories were fabricated by fans after Knudsen's original posts. The character has no genuine historical or folkloric roots[3]. ### What is the Slender Man movie? Sony Pictures released a *Slender Man* film in August 2018, directed by Sylvain White and starring Joey King. It grossed $51.7 million but received overwhelmingly negative reviews and drew criticism from the family of one of the Waukesha stabbing attackers[6]. ### What is "Slender sickness"? In the mythology, Slender sickness refers to symptoms experienced by those near Slender Man, including paranoia, nightmares, coughing fits, nosebleeds, memory loss, and electronic device interference[3]. ### What games feature Slender Man? The main games are *Slender: The Eight Pages* (2012), a free indie horror game, and its sequel *Slender: The Arrival* (2013), both based on the character. A third game, *S: The Lost Chapters*, is scheduled for 2026[5]. ### What was the community's response to the Waukesha stabbing? Creator Eric Knudsen said he was "deeply saddened." The Creepypasta website issued condolences while arguing horror fiction was not responsible. Folklorist Jeff Tolbert called the blame placed on the character "a moral panic"[1]. ## References 1. [The origins of Slender Man - BBC News]() 2. [The Slender Man Stabbing: When A Meme Led To Attempted Murder]() 3. [Slender Man is Coming for You]() 4. [Slender Man - Know Your Meme]() 5. [Slender Man]() 6. [Slender Man - Urban Dictionary]() 7. [The Impossible Astronaut]() 8. [Silent (Doctor Who) - Wikipedia]() 9. [Yahtzee Croshaw - Wikipedia]() 10. [Slender: The Arrival - Wikipedia]() 11. [Slender Man (film) - Wikipedia]() 12. [The Terrifying Tale of Slender Man: An Urban Legend – Horror Mystery]() 13. [Slenderman Encyclopedia: History, Sightings & Tulpa Theory]() 14. [The Origin of Slender Man: From 2009 Internet Meme to Legendary Modern Myth]() 15. [Create Paranormal Images - The Something Awful Forums]() 16. [Create Paranormal Images - The Something Awful Forums]() 17. [Create Paranormal Images - The Something Awful Forums]() 18. [Create Paranormal Images - The Something Awful Forums]() 19. [Dreams In Darkness: And life in general...]() 20. [Slenderverse Media, Suggested links, blogs, and vlogs]() 21. [Seeking Truth: Assignment]() 22. [The Operator - Marble Hornets]() 23. [Creepypasta - Slender Man]() 24. [64Digits]() 25. [The Terrifying ‘Slenderman’ Goes from Meme to Free Horror Game - Kotaku]() 26. [Slender Delivers Scares From Internet's Darkest Depths | Rock Paper Shotgun]() 27. [Encyclopedia Slenderia: Der Schwarzwald und Der Ritter]() 28. [The new mob I've been working on is a bit creepy..]() 29. [The Slender Man | Der Großmann - Urban Legends Online]() 30. ['Marble Hornets' Flying to Bigscreen]() 31. [Slender: The Eight Pages]() 32. [Slender Man game released, scare the hell out of yourself for free | PC Gamer]() 33. [rainingidealism: bowsiepinkiepie: ... • I Lack Tact]() 34. [Review: In ‘Slender Man,’ Horror Emerges From the Internet - The New York Times]() 35. [Slender Man Review: A Terrible Movie About the Internet's Best Monster]() 36. [Slender Man Reviews - Metacritic]() 37. [Pancakes]() 38. [View topic - List of Slender ARG's, Blogs, Vlogs, and Interactive Fiction]() 39. [Slender man - Deleted Wikipedia Article | Wikibin]() 40. [Search 'Slender Man' on DeviantArt - Discover The Largest Online Art Gallery and Community]() 41. [The Slender Nation Forums - Homepage]() 42. [Something happened - The Something Awful Forums]() 43. [View Forum - Marble Hornets]() 44. [Marble Hornets- Real Or Hoax?]() 45. [View topic - List of Slender ARG's, Blogs, Vlogs, and Interactive Fiction]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/slender-man Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library